


Angela's Choice

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anachronism, Attempted Suicide, Blood, Body Horror, Character Death, Choose Your Own Ending, Cunnilingus, Dubious Consent, F/F, Fantasy Universe, Female on female impregnation, Fingering, Genital Mutilation, Implied Cannibalism, Mythology – Freeform, Nuns, Oviposition, Platonic Soulmates, Promised goods will arrive in later chapters, Sexual Abuse, Spiders, Succubus, Teratophilia, Will change rating when the time comes, aphrodisiac, dead dove do not eat, escaping arranged marriage, satanic rituals, unusual anatomy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28522011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It started off as a game. Sure, it might have been difficult to explain the goat's blood and the glowing pentagram, but a little sacrilege never hurt, right?All she wanted was freedom.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

Goat’s blood was surprisingly hard to come by. Lydia, the old nanny goat, hadn’t produced milk in years. The new generation of gluttonous young nuns had floated the idea of Easter mutton chops, but Lydia had long since been granted immunity. She was the convent mascot, kept alive by virtue of her popularity with the older sisters, who perhaps saw themselves in Lydia’s watery eyes and grizzled chin hairs.

Angela had been sitting in the dark for an hour now, waiting for the jug to fill. Blood oozed from the wound in Lydia’s flank. It meandered down her fur in a steady trickle, a crimson rivulet that tumbled past the jug’s wide lip to join the slowly coagulating pool. A litre of blood wasn’t an enormous ask, but somebody would have noticed if they killed the poor thing. It would have been easier to slit Lydia’s throat.

The barn, or the ramshackle lean-to, lived in the Abbey’s shadow. It was a monster of a building, that abbey, with its gothic spires and gargoyles more reminiscent of a penitentiary than a place of worship. Its catacombs housed dozens of young nuns, mostly wealthy girls with burned out families. The Abbey was a prison of sorts, a cage for the rampant histrionics and wilful natures of spoiled young women. Among the debutantes, the Abbey was referred to as the Hole. It was a place devoid of joy, comfort, or basic entertainments, the pinnacle of asceticism and self-flagellation. If God couldn’t change their ways, then the months of mind-numbing ennui would.

More than one girl tried to run away in the middle of the night, and none had succeeded. A girl ran into the abbess whilst enacting her great escape, and the old crone had simply said, “Don’t forget your shawl, sister, it is cold tonight.” The poor girl was so disheartened by the encounter, she returned to her room in tears. Escape was an exercise in futility, and thus guards were an unnecessary expenditure.

Despite its enormous size, the Hole had no pilgrims, no Sunday visitors. It was a monolith of stained glass and limestone, erected in a lonely expanse of uninterrupted plains, its very existence a testament to the veracity of miracles. The plains stretched out every which way, with no tree or shrub in sight - only miles upon miles of yellow grass. The abbess had a panoramic view of the whole estate from her observatory windows. A girl could run for days and be spotted. It was both a blessing and a curse. Collapsing from dehydration was not uncommon among girls on the lam, and it was thankfully easy to pinpoint her location in the weeds. Just look for the black stain in a landscape of flax yellow. All the girls’ clothes were black.

Let’s say a girl had planned ahead, brought along enough rations and water to sustain herself for a week’s trek. Even still, she would find herself disoriented, unable to detect any signs of nearby civilization. There were no roads leading to the Hole. Supplies and correspondence arrived weekly by mule-drawn wagons. Mules were the only animals capable of pulling through the long grass. The aristocrats’ fine horses, with their spindly knees and horseshoed hooves, could not combat the prickly grass, and a trusty mule would have to be sent to fetch them. The girls had tried to locate the direction of the nearest town by watching the wagons come over the horizon, but it seemed the wagons came from all corners of the earth. Each of the girls had come blindfolded, their ears stuffed with cotton. The Hole became the epicentre of the world.

Besides the Abbey, the lean-to was the only respite from the tallgrass. Angela smoothed a calming hand over Lydia’s tough hide. They hadn’t lit any torches in the barn, and Angela could barely see by the scant moonlight. The powdery white chalk beneath her feet gleamed blue. Though it was three in the morning, Angela didn’t want to take any chances with the abbess. The situation would have been impossible to explain.

What were they doing, siphoning blood from a nanny good at the witching hour? They were conducting a science experiment of sorts. Lucy had called it ‘the furthering of their intellectual boundaries.’ This was the same girl who said she would handle the lancing no problem, a plan was in place, yada yada. Angela was a fool to believe her. Lucy stabbing a knitting needle into Lydia’s cachectic thigh sans anesthetic and narrowly avoiding a kick in the face, was not Angela’s idea of a well-executed plan. Lydia had spent a good ten minutes circling the lean-to’s central beam by the extension of the rope around her neck, spraying precious blood onto the dirt as Lucy tried to catch her. Their only saving grace was that Lydia was too old to bleat. Exasperated, Angela had told Lucy to stand sentry while she collected the blood herself.

It was imperative that they didn’t get caught. The allegation of witchcraft was not taken lightly.

Lucy stood with her back against the door frame. She stopped complaining about the cold nearly forty minutes ago, and the head bobbing had started around the same time. Though the execution was Lucy’s idea in the first place, Angela was doing all the legwork. Angela sighed into her jug of goat’s blood. A sigh was a complicated thing. This one involved a helpless shrug of the shoulders, a mild wrinkling of the brow, and the faintest of smiles. Lucy’s ability to sleep anywhere, in any position, was one of her more endearing qualities.

“Lucy,” Angela whispered, “You can sit with me. Nobody’s going to come.” The plains were eerily quiet at night, and even a whisper could slice through the silence. Her own voice startled her. For a moment, she thought her voice might have belonged to somebody else. Her ears were playing tricks. Angela shivered. An inexplicable, icy spike of fear stabbed through her, and she pulled her cloak tighter.

“Lucy?” Angela’s voice was tentative. Lucy’s sleeping profile was naïve, so defenceless. Though Angela couldn’t pinpoint what had changed, she was suddenly terrified that something was going to happen to Lucy. Lucy needed to wake up. They couldn’t afford to be separated by a meter’s distance with each left to fend for herself, not when something was going to happen. Angela was frozen to her post, holding the warm jug of blood.

“Angela.” The murmur was almost imperceptibly quiet.

Angela’s heart leapt into her throat. She gripped the jug so firmly, her knuckle turned white. The dark liquid in the jug rippled, threatening to tip over the edge. Was she shaking?

“Angela.” The guttural voice was louder this time, insistent. “Angela, Angela,” more voices joined in, and soon, her name echoed throughout the lean-to, amplified a hundred-fold. With each iteration, the voices distorted. Angela jumped in her seat. Without warning, blood spilled onto her hands, the mess of it clumpy, clotted and sickly warm. She gasped. The lean-to filled with a sulfurous effluvium that brought tears to her eyes.

These weren’t echoes. Somebody, something, was whispering to her. The voices were coming from every direction, circling her like sharks to blood, boxing her in. Lydia, for the first time in years, began to bleat, and her ear-splitting cries sounded like a wailing child. There were too many voices overlapping for Angela to make out what they were saying. Through the snarling and demonic growls, she heard the lilting tones of a woman. This voice scared her most of all. It was saccharine, too beautiful to belong amidst this cacophony of animal cries, and it was beckoning to her.

Couldn’t Lucy hear this? Angela wanted to scream. At the very least, she wanted to tell Lucy to run, but there was something gripping her vocal cords. Her body was sluggish, as if she had been dipped in molasses. All she could feel was the pounding of her heart, her pulse singing in her ears. Suddenly, a warm breath scattered across her cheek, and there was a momentary reprieve from the horrid stink; she was enveloped by the smell of roses. The presence hovered over her shoulder. “Drop it,” the woman said. No, commanded, in that sweet, honeyed voice. Dagger-like nails sank into Angela’s shoulder, and the jug of blood slipped out of her hands. Blood drenched her habit and soaked the glowing pentagram beneath her feet.

The woman began to laugh. Her laughter had an airy and melodic quality that reminded Angela of windchimes. Though Angela was covered in blood, she felt an irresistible urge to laugh with her. Her laughter was nothing like that woman’s, however – it was desperate, manic, and so ineluctable that she could no longer breathe. With bloody hands, she grasped at her throat. There was something compressing her lungs unbearably tight, forcing her to choke out laughter through her clenched teeth.

A loud thump startled Angela out of her stupor. In a fit of sleep, Lucy had smacked the back of her head against the door frame. The ensuing imprecations were impressive. Certainly, they were not nun-like.

Angela blinked. The whispers were gone. Lydia was sleeping quietly on a stack of dried grass.

“Shit, Angela, sorry,” Lucy ran over, nearly tripping over the edge of her habit in the process. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“It’s alright,” Angela said. She mulled over each syllable. To her surprise, they sounded like her own. The jug, full to the brim with goat’s blood, rested placidly next to her feet. “I think I had a nightmare.”

When Angela inspected her shaking hands, they were pristine.

“The pentagram is crooked,” Angela said. They had gone over half of it in blood, leaving the complicated runes for last. The Book had called for the completion of the sigil by moonlight. It was hard enough to drawn by day, and given their rudimentary artistic skills, they didn’t need further handicaps. Lucy figured they could draw a rough outline in chalk during morning chores and come back to it at night. The Book had also called for a virgin goat, and Angela was certain Lydia hadn’t always been as agamous as she looked. It seemed both the Catholics and the Pagans loved their virgins.

Lucy collapsed against the dirt floor in defeat. She aimed her paintbrush for the quarter-filled jug and threw. Her brush arced over the bloody pentagram, splashing viscous fluid onto the packed dirt before it landed in a haystack, a meter off target. “I give up. You’ve got the steadier hand, you do it.”

“We’re running out of blood.”

“Ah, dammit. Do you think it’d matter if we used our own?”

Angela rolled her eyes. “We’d probably be condemned to Hell if it ends up working.”

“I think we’ve already got seats reserved,” Lucy said. Her tunic was pushed up to her shins, exposing her thick ankles. “I thought you were convinced this would never work, Ms. Faithless.”

“Well, faith and superstition are different.”

“So, you think superstition is more powerful than faith?”

Angela got up from her chair and retrieved the blood paintbrush from the withered hay. “Same spectrum of irrational belief. I’m just more honest with myself.”

The completed pentagram did not look like the picture. They had gingerly shifted bits of coagulated blood to supplement holes in coverage, and their efforts were evidenced by the streaks of blood that tracked across the pentagram. Tufts of grass and chalk residue congealed in the drying clots. It was the best they could do with the tools they were given.

Angela held the Book reverently; she clutched its thick spine with the kind of deference her bible could only dream of. The thin pages were worn and yellow and smelled faintly of smoke. The cover was deep red, with a velvety texture. Neither of them could read the title, composed of runes etched into the leather and embossed in gold leaf. Angela had discovered the Book in the Abbey’s unnavigated library, tucked away behind a series of pulp paperbacks. It was odd the library hosted such a diverse and sacrilegious selection. Anyways, the girls the Hole took in were not the reading type. The ones successfully converted into religious zealots would only ever peruse scriptures or hymnals.

The Book had called to her. Pulp science fiction was not her primary sustenance. To be honest, Angela was on the lookout for trashy erotica when her feet found themselves headed towards science fiction instead. She rolled the elephant ladder to this foreign section and began to climb. When she reached the thirteenth rung, her hand reached for a book with a gaudy title and a woman in ass-tits pose along the spine, a pulp obviously written by a silly white man. She shoved it unceremoniously to the side, revealing the Book hidden against the back of the shelf.

Lucy frowned at the sigil and crossed her arms. “It’s all up to you now, Angela. Let’s hope our Latin classes paid off.”

“You could do it too. Your pronunciation isn’t the worst I’ve heard.” Given how terrible some of the girls were, this was not much conciliation. The standards could not be any lower.

“Hah, funny.” Lucy nudged a smudge of extraneous blood away from the pentagram with her toe. “If we really botch it, we might summon a toad, and that’ll be the end of that.”

Lucy’s jokes were more feeble than usual. Angela noticed her gaze darting skittishly around the lean-to. Angela was the one who claimed to be afraid of the occult, but Lucy was always the first to jump. “We’ll be fine. This is just for fun, remember? The furthering of our intellectual boundaries.”

“Right,” Lucy murmured, and she sidled closer. She looked up at Angela, and after a moment’s hesitation, grabbed her hand. “A game.”

Angela squeezed back. “A game.”

Angela wasn’t ashamed of her wish. It was socially unacceptable, but that didn’t concern her. She had no reason to feel guilty. Her malice, if you could even call it that, was tepid and matter of fact. It might have been better termed pragmatism. If she had any misgivings, it was that the Devil would think her banal. After all, she wasn’t the first woman who prayed for the death of her husband.

The Book, open to the sigil they had tried to emulate, felt heavy in Angela’s outstretched hands. On the left-hand page was the pentagram accompanied by Latin incantations. Neither of them could interpret the spidery cursive crowding the margins. The page opposite showed the drawing of a woman. Her spiral horns were tucked tightly behind her peaked ears, and another set of fluted growths protruded from her forehead. Her enormous black wings were spiked, and her thick tail curved around voluptuous hips. Most importantly, she held a man’s twisted neck in one hand, and his soft heart in the other.

Angela felt a tug on the back of her tunic and turned. Lucy flashed a shaky smile. “Ready when you are,” she said.

It was a cloudless night. The pale face of the moon had gradually descended, and she was low enough now that she could peek into their lean-to and frown upon them, a sure sign that their time was running out. Sunrise was encroaching.

Angela scanned the Latin phrases one more time. They seemed to leap out of the page towards her, begging her to give them life. After a final deep breath, Angela began to read. Out of nowhere, a wind began to pick up. It grew more fervent with every word, as if it were trying to drown out Angela’s incantations. Angela’s hood was blown off her head, and her hair whipped around her face in a frenzy. Lydia, awoken from slumber, pawed at the ground in a desperate bid for shelter, her mouth open in noiseless screams. The pentagram shined with unholy light. It was too late to turn back now.

Angela knelt and placed her hand on the bloody sigil. She nodded at Lucy, who did the same. The wind howled, bemoaning the naivety of these two girls. The ground beneath them shook. Angela cried, “Demon, I call upon you.”

They held their breath. The blood beneath Angela’s hand was cold, and the smell of its metallic tang sharpened her senses. The earth became still.

“Nothing’s happening.” Lucy looked at Angela incredulously.

She was right. The moment had gone. Even Lydia noticed the shift to normalcy and went back to sleep utterly unperturbed.

Angela exhaled and snapped the book closed. With more force than she initially intended, she sent the book flying and laid down on the dirt floor. “Maybe that’s for the best.”

“It doesn’t make sense! I swear it was working. What was with all that shaking? And the wind? That couldn’t have been natural. I swore I saw…” Lucy grimaced and shook her head. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Angela put her forearm over her eyes. Relief and disappointment battled within her, and her conflicting emotions made her sick to her stomach. Lucy relied on her to be the level-headed one, the realist, and Angela couldn’t admit how far gone she had been. She didn’t know how to describe what came over her – perhaps the only fitting word for it was ecstasy. When she put her hand over that book and invoked its curse, she had felt overwhelming power. The rush of it, coursing through her like fire, made her weak in the knees. It was like a warm caress, a sensual finger trailing up and down her spine. For some reason, she pictured that nightmare woman with the velvet voice, who smelled of roses.

She was a fool to believe in a Pagan fairy tale. Moreover, she was scared. She was terrified by her own desires, the depth of her fantasies.

She had wanted to bathe in blood.

Technically, Angela hadn't wanted to kill her husband. He was only her fiancé. The man was a smug, nouveau-riche bastard who decided he wanted to play aristocrat, and Angela was the only child of ruined nobility. Being prostituted off to a wealthy merchant was an inevitability. Her parents were used to hedonistic excess and being waited on and coddled, despite their rapidly dwindling funds and non-existent incomes. The upkeep of their crumbling castle meant more to them than the happiness of their daughter.

He was a handsome man, they said. So intelligent and business-savvy, and only fifteen years her senior; he was a man with a wealth of experience and the maturity that came with age. Whereas Angela was getting long in the tooth, almost twenty-three and single, nearly past the marriable age. The talk of marriage made Angela recoil in disgust. She had rejected multitudes of suitors in her adolescence, under the guise of finding the One. The One had to be perfect, she said, one who would be an asset to our family and worthy of our pedigree.

This man, or his pocketbook, fit the bill. She knew that her parents, in private, had affectionately dubbed him Mr. Moneybags. Mr. Moneybags guaranteed not only a life of comfort, but one of luxury. Her parents had made up their minds. Angela didn’t disagree with marriage in principle. It was transactional, a partnership between two individuals pursuing their self-interests. In an ideal world, the man in question would find a few mistresses and leave her be.

Was this man evil? No, no more so than any other man, if he were granted the same privileges. He was shaped by his absurd wealth, made brazen by his expensive armour. Unsurprisingly, he felt his success was contingent on his own business acumen, not the sweat of his labourers or the tiny smidge of capital from his daddy dearest. Furthermore, Moneybags had the charming habit of preening himself in his silver chalice during suppertime while she spoke. In subsequent dinners, Angela spoke less and less, until she didn’t speak at all. Moneybags didn’t seem to notice. His willing sycophants were more than happy to lick his boots while he basked in their flattery. Worst of all, he was a dreadful bore. He hated talking about books. He didn’t know how to read anything except financial ledgers and business memos, and he was threatened by Angela’s intellectual inclinations. He said that when they were married, he would replace her library with a ballroom fit to entertain his hunting friends. She couldn’t tell if he was joking.

Angela had no issues dealing with this type. Entitled narcissists were a dime a dozen amongst the upper class, and she had long since immured her reflexive distaste. He was irritating, but that didn’t warrant his death.

In private, however, he was different. Gone was his veneer of practiced decorum. At first, his sexual come-ons were insipid, classic limp dick innuendos for men who used connections and power to con their way into women’s beds. He liked to regale her with his tales of conquest, particularly his sadistic exploits and the sick things he had done to women in the past. Angela bore his harassment with a straight face. She refused to give him the satisfaction of her fear.

The last time they had been left alone, they were in the rose garden, secluded from the main house. Moneybags was walking two steps ahead of her. Lucy had stayed glued to her side, making silly faces to make her smile while Moneybags prattled on about his accomplishments. His grating, nasally voice might as well have been white noise.

When they reached the hedge maze, Moneybags whipped his head around, and Lucy had to cough into her elbow to hide her exaggerated expression. “What are you still doing here, maid? Can’t you see we’re busy?”

Lucy mustered her sweetest smile, which contradicted the flinty look in her eyes. “I’m sorry my Lordship, I believe Mistress may require my services.” Lucy hadn’t called her Mistress in years.

Moneybags’ expression darkened. “Well, as her future husband, I am speaking on her behalf.” A cruel smile snaked its way across his face. He was the kind of generic, forgettable handsome that Angela detested, and his smirk made him only more repugnant. As if to prove his point, he grabbed Angela’s wrist hard enough to bruise and yanked her to him. “Remember, you serve me now.” He spat at Lucy’s feet.

“Yes, my lordship.” Lucy’s voice was so quiet, she was barely audible. Lucy stood there trembling as Moneybags led Angela into the hedge maze.

He had gotten handsy almost immediately. Why else would he have sequestered her in the hedge maze? His sausage fingers around her waist felt like slugs. She persistently extricated herself from his grasp, and he just as persistently reattached himself to her.

Finally, Angela couldn’t stand it any further. She shoved away his migrating hands, and screamed, “Stop touching me, God damn you.”

The slap didn’t register, at first. She had never been hit in her life. Her parents had little role in parenting, and the wet nurses who raised her were too afraid of unemployment to raise their hands against her. In shock, she touched her stinging cheek and realized her face was wet with involuntary tears. She furiously wiped them away.

“Watch your mouth, princess. I own you. You need to learn some manners.” Moneybags grabbed both of her wrists in a deadlock and clasped his other hand around her mouth. Angela’s screams against his sweaty palm sounded muffled, like choked sobs. Prickly thorns dug into her back as she struggled against him, and a disgusting protuberance pressed against Angela’s thigh. He whispered into her ear, “I think that maid’s a bad influence on you. She should be sent away. Or maybe, I can give her to my farmhands. I’m sure they would appreciate a young girl to relieve their stress with.”

Mixed in with her terror, Angela felt a rush of pure rage. She wanted to bite his fingers off. His meaty hand was too doughy, and she couldn’t find purchase. If only his fingers would come closer…

Angela heard approaching footsteps, the sound of sturdy heels pounding against dirt. Lucy burst into the hedge maze, wielding a pair of giant shears. “Mistress!”

Moneybags cursed and disentangled himself from Angela. She felt her legs give way, and she collapsed onto the floor, unable to catch her breath.

Lucy wiped the sweat from her forehead and panted, “The Countess has called for you. It’s urgent. I’m sorry my Lordship, but it really can’t wait.” The expression in her eyes was unreadable.

Moneybags took a menacing step forward. “You bitch, how dare you-”

Before Moneybags finished his sentence, Lucy jabbed her shears into the hedge next to his head, missing his ear by a sliver. “My sincerest apologies, Lordship, I have unsteady hands. Please speak to the Countess if you have any concerns.”

Moneybags yelped, and his face froze in a tableau of fear. He touched a shaky hand to his ear as Lucy pushed past him, purposefully shoving him aside with her shoulder. It was only when she helped Angela to her feet that her eyes began to fill with tears. Together, the two of them walked out of the hedge maze as fast as their feet could take them, and they didn’t look back.

“Listen to me, Lucy,” Angela said. She locked her bedroom door behind them and drew the chintz curtains closed, barring the midday sun. Angela’s tears had long dried, but Lucy was inconsolable. Lucy sat on the edge of Angela’s silk sheets, blubbering into her hands. Angela gently pried Lucy’s hands away from her face and pressed a handkerchief to her swollen eyes.

“I’m fine,” Angela said, wrapping her arms around Lucy’s shaking shoulders, “Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m so sorry, Angela. I shouldn’t have listened to that asshole. I should have driven my sheers through his skull. I should have killed him. I’m so sorry.”

“We can talk about it later. Right now, we have more important things to talk about.” Angela’s head was startlingly clear. Her amorphous rage had crystallized, and the refined point of her anger guided her thoughts with algorithmic precision. “He’s going to tell my parents what happened. The best-case scenario is that he calls off the wedding and accepts our apology. Worst-case, he’ll press charges.”

“Charges?” Lucy’s eyes widened.

Angela chuckled. “You did almost spear him with a sharp object.”

Finally, Lucy cracked a smile through her hiccupping sobs. “He deserved it! It was self-defence!”

“That he does. But Moneybags is a powerful man. He’s made it perfectly clear that he has friends in high places. I can’t get married to a man like that, Lucy. You have to help me.” It wasn’t the complete truth. Angela didn’t like lying to her, but Lucy was distraught enough as it was, and she needed Lucy to pull it together if her plans were to succeed. A man like Moneybags was easy to understand. He would marry her out of spite and make her and Lucy’s lives a living hell. If Lucy truly became his property in the eyes of the law… Angela didn’t want to imagine what would happen her. Angela would protect them both from that future, whatever the cost.

“Of course, I’ll do whatever I can. I’d do anything for you.” Lucy ran her thumbs over the bruises blossoming across Angela’s wrists. They sat in silence and stared at the purple marks on Angela’s pale skin, the brand of a wealthy man’s privilege. Unable to bear it any longer, Lucy tore her eyes away. “But what if that’s not enough? What happens then?”

“We’ll be together.” Angela pressed their foreheads together. “That’s what matters.”

Angela’s parents cowered at the head of the dining table as Moneybags tore into them. “Your daughter’s maid is a reprobate and a scoundrel. She almost skewered me. I have no words for the violence perpetrated against me today.”

The Countess cooed her agreement. “I always knew that wench was no good. I’ll have her out of this house effective immediately.” The Countess thought it was rather a shame. She liked Lucy, even if she was a little slow on the uptake. Something must have happened for Lucy to act out like this. The Countess knew Moneybags wasn’t a good man, but what could she do? So much money was on the line. There would always be more maids, and Angela could learn to be happy. Maybe. Pretending to ponder the subject, the Countess then mused, “This won’t affect your relations with our daughter, will it? She likes you so much, I would hate for her heart to be broken.”

In a similarly affected tone, Moneybags said, “I’m not so sure anymore. After the emotional and physical damage done to me today, I may have to decrease the annuity we previously agreed upon…”

The Count, who had previously been silent, looked aghast. “Surely a man can’t go back upon his word!”

The adults were quibbling over finances and snacking on their amuse-bouche when the double doors slammed open. Lucy ran in clutching a crimson rag. Her wet hair was plastered to her forehead, and crimson water ran in streams down her face, mingling with her tears. It looked like she was crying blood.

The Countess slammed her fork onto the delicate china. “What in God’s name is wrong with you?”

Lucy came to an abrupt stop at the perimeter of the expensive Persian textile and looked around the dining room with shell-shocked eyes. It was as if she had forgotten the purpose of her unannounced visit. Dark water trickled down her uniform and pooled around her feet, threatening to bleed into the imported rug. Absentmindedly, she dabbed at her damp face with her wet cloth, leaving behind even more vivid scarlet. When she looked down at her feet, she seemed to recall her position and immediately dropped to her knees to begin scrubbing. She mumbled to herself under her breath, too quiet for the dinner party to hear. They were stunned into silence.

“Is that…my goodness, is that blood?” The Count managed to stammer. At the same time, the Countess demanded, “What on earth happened?” Moneybags looked pale, and for once, had no input. He clutched the edge of the table while pointedly looking away. Lucy was close enough that they could smell iron.

Lucy’s shoulders shook once, twice, before a keening wail erupted from her lips. She dragged herself across the rug, staining it blood-red, and curled a weak hand around the leg of the Countess’s chair in supplication. “Angela’s killed herself!”

The Countess stood up so fast, she knocked over her chair. It landed harmlessly on plush carpet with a dull smack. “She what?”

Lucy was facedown, howling gibberish. Her hand was still clawed around a phantom chair leg, which hovered a foot off the floor.

The Count marched over to Lucy and lifted her by the shoulders, almost throwing her to her feet. She was a despondent, lifeless doll in his hands. Without his vice-grip on her shoulders, she certainly would have collapsed back onto the carpet. “Pull yourself together and take us to her, you damn worthless girl.”

“There was so much blood,” Lucy moaned. “So much blood…”


	2. Chapter 2

Angela woke up to the sight of her muslin canopy. Her room was dark, save for the flickering candlelight that cast an orange glow through the gossamer drapes. She had to free herself from her comforters, and the effort of it produced a thin sheen of sweat over her forehead. Lucy had been over-zealous in tucking her in. Angela inspected the thick layer of bandages that wound up her forearm. She blanched when she took in the crusted blood that seeped through to the surface. The blood hadn’t fazed her when it was all over the bathroom floor, but that was when she was fuelled by adrenaline and unadulterated fear. Seeing the vestiges of her attempt sent shudders down her spine. Despite the thick woolen nightgown and multiple comforters, she felt horribly cold. 

“Lucy,” she croaked.

There was no answer. Angela hadn’t thought much further than Lucy finding her in the bathtub. She had miscalculated. The cut wasn’t deep, but she had underestimated how quickly she would bleed out. Hours had passed, enough time for her parents to have sent Lucy packing. Angela felt like she had been dipped in ice water. 

She violently sat up and yanked her drapes aside. Her head throbbed. Her room, opulently decorated in Gothic fashion, was empty. The edges of her vision turned black. In the foggy outskirts of her consciousness, she heard somebody gasping. They were sucking in ragged breaths at half-second intervals, barely giving themselves enough time to exhale. Oh, she thought, I’m hyperventilating. Angela clutched her hand around her wound and dug. Breathe, she told herself. Nothing could be accomplished through panic. She focused on the pain as she counted breaths in her head. The pain made her wince, but it grounded her, and she descended back into her fatigued, empty shell of a body that couldn’t get enough air. Fresh blood bloomed through the white bandages. Her vision, shot through with stars and pinpricks, slowly returned to her. 

“Angela?”

Angela turned and saw Lucy standing in the doorway, holding a tray of tea and biscuits. Lucy’s short hair was in disarray, and she was still wearing her dishevelled but dry maid’s uniform. The sight of her brought tears to Angela’s eyes. 

“Oh my God, Angela, what’s wrong?” Lucy rushed over to her side, the china tinkling as she ran. She shoved aside the books and papers on Angela’s unfathomably messy nightstand and set the tray down. “Your wound has started to bleed again. Wait here, let me get the bandages.”

Before Lucy could leave, Angela grabbed her hand. 

“I thought you had been sent away already.” Angela’s voice was tremulous. She hated herself for her weakness. She had coerced Lucy into this farce, yet she was unable to let go of Lucy’s hand. It had been a terrible thing to ask of Lucy. She had argued, begged her to consider other options, and in the end could only watch helplessly as Angela dug the paper-knife through her unmarred skin. Angela needed Lucy to commit to the act, and what better way to convince her than through blood?

Lucy forced the heel of her free hand against her eye and bit down on her trembling lip. Despite her efforts, fat tears slipped down her cheeks like rain. “That should be the least of your concerns. I know it was mostly food colouring, but when I saw you in the bathtub like that…” Lucy sat next to Angela on the bed and grabbed a box of tissues to share. “God, sorry. All I know how to do is cry.”

“It had to be convincing, right?”

“Well, it would have been for nothing if you died. I told you you’d gone too deep.” Even though Lucy’s tone was gruff, her tenderness betrayed her. She gently inspected Angela’s wrist, turning it over gingerly as if Angela was a broken doll that required mending. 

“Don’t look so down.” Angela smiled. She knew that Lucy didn’t have the heart to reprimand her. “Didn’t you see the look on Mother’s face? Right now, she’d agree to anything. We’re almost there.”

“And here I thought I was the impulsive one.”

Angela shrugged. “I learn from the best.” 

They were so close to freedom. 

The situation at dinner could only be described as awkward. In the ambient candlelight, mother and daughter dined noiselessly at either end of the table while Lucy stood in the corner, waiting. It was rare that they dined together without the presence of guests. Typically, Angela shared her meals with Lucy in the greenhouse, much to the envy of the other servants, who rarely tasted the extravagant meals they helped prepare. The Count asked for dinner to be brought to his room, along with a bottle of sherry. Apparently, he didn’t spare a glance for his fragrant coq au vin – he had grabbed the sherry bottle and slammed the door in the valet’s face. Angela's attempt had left an impression. 

Angela heard the click of heels echoing down the hallway, the butler discreetly announcing himself. He pushed open the double doors, carrying two miniature platters entombed by cloches. If he had any inkling of what had happened in the bathroom that day, he made no indication. Of course, all the servants were privy to the scandal. The Countess had fainted at the scene, and Lucy’s inane wailing had piqued several curious ears. A horde of scullery maids was still scrubbing out blood (and food colouring) from the towels. 

The old butler was the picture of professionalism, the stereotypical upstanding male servant. He set a delicate saucer in front of the Countess and lifted the cloche with a flourish, revealing a chocolate cake doused in powdered sugar and raspberries. “My lady, it’s fondant au chocolat tonight, your favourite.” 

The Countess was a wreck. Her hair, usually immaculately done up in an extravagant pouf, trailed over her shoulders. She snapped, “You know, I always thought you talked too much.”

The butler bowed. He silently delivered Angela’s portion before excusing himself. Angela had made it halfway through her molten chocolate dessert when she said, “Please don’t speak to him like that.” In the dead silence, her words bounced from the high ceilings and ricocheted off the crystal chandeliers, picking up traction until they reached the Countess’s ears in the form of a command. Or maybe, the Countess was just a little on edge. 

“How dare you.” The Countess speared her chocolate cake, which she had left untouched. Liquid chocolate oozed out of the crescent wound, seeping into forlorn raspberries. “I’ve had enough of your insolence. You’ve brought nothing but shame to this house, and I regret having had you.”

Angela scoffed. “Then you shouldn’t have stopped me from dying.” 

The Countess blanched. Her polished silver spoon fell from her hand and clattered against the table. Her spine seemed to curl under the weight of Angela’s words. Without the shell of her expensive couture and haughty expression, the Countess shrank into herself and became small, belying her years. With a shaky hand, the Countess brought her teacup to her lips, hiding her face behind its golden brim. 

Angela did not feel close to the woman who birthed her, nor was she grateful for the gift of life. Life was a state of being. If it was a gift, it was certainly one she didn’t ask for. Her easy childhood and relative comforts came at a price. The woman in front of her had never looked upon her fondly, had never run a hand through her hair or wiped away her tears. Angela was a commodity, an expensive plaything that the Countess could parade around the dancefloor and show off to her guests. Angela’s wardrobe was populated with reams of luxurious dresses bought with money they didn’t have. Before Angela understood that she was simply bait for future suitors, those dresses had been the sole evidence of her mother’s affections. 

It was difficult not to feel sorry for a woman who did not understand love. 

Angela’s eyes met Lucy’s. She was not going to ruin their plans for pity. Like them, her mother would have to fend for herself. 

Angela rolled up the long sleeves of her fuchsia dress, revealing rows of bandages. “Mother, let’s not pretend this didn’t happen.” She hadn’t let Lucy change her bandages. The more devastating her wound looked, the better. 

“Put that away,” the Countess murmured, as if Angela was waving a toy around at the supper table instead of her bloody arm. 

“Can’t you see? I am unstable.” Angela thought herself a more refined actress than this, but she hadn’t enough time to rehearse, and this adlib would have to suffice. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lucy hiding her cringe behind a handkerchief. The show must go on. “The thought of marriage overwhelmed me, and I almost completed a heinous act that would have defied the will of God. I need to repent for my actions.”

Luckily, the Countess was looking away, too nauseated by the sight of bloody bandages to notice Angela’s nauseous acting. Bless the Countess and her fear of blood. “How exactly do you plan on doing that?” she asked. 

“I think I need some time away.” Angela licked her lips. “The Abbey would do me good.”

“The Abbey?” Forgetting propriety, the Countess slammed her teacup onto its saucer in surprise. She didn’t know her child well, but she at least knew that Angela felt only scathing contempt for religion. Getting her to attend Sunday school as a child had been an immense headache. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she found blasphemy hidden in Angela’s drawers. The Countess couldn’t care less. Angela was free to entertain her silly personal opinions if she kept up appearances in front of their peerage. 

However, as her mother, it was the Countess’s duty to provide a guiding hand on the odd occasion. “I can’t imagine you craving the divine radiance of the Lord. I don’t know what fantasies you’ve fabricated about the Abbey, but the life of a novitiate is not easy. The girls there don’t even have servants! It’s anarchy.” 

Without skipping a beat, Angela said, “I’d need Lucy to come along, of course. All the debutantes brought a maid along to handle the grunt work. I can’t be disrupted from my spiritual journey by something as mundane as laundry.” Angela paused. She shook her head affectedly, and her tone became sombre. “I realized something after my brush with death. I saw His divine face, and only God’s salvation can change my mental circumstances.” She brushed an index finger under her eye to collect an invisible tear.

The Countess, being a good Catholic woman, could not argue with that logic. “You were visited by the Lord? Praise be.” The Countess felt a wash of relief. She had been horribly guilty through dinner, and she could not piece together an etiology. Guilt was not a sensation she was familiar with. Women of her station had no use for that crushing discomfort, not when they had such affinity for externalization and self-entitlement. The presence of God had smiled upon her wretched daughter, and thus the Countess was absolved. The salve of God would do Angela some good, as it had done for her. 

Angela resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. 

The Countess sat up in her chair, pleased with Angela’s revelation. She had quickly returned to her typical high spirits. However, there were some logistical concerns that needed addressing. “What would his Lordship say?” The Lord Almighty was the one true Lord, but Lord Moneybags was the one who would pay their bills. “He’s not exactly a young man anymore. I don’t know if he can afford to wait.”

Angela smiled through gritted teeth. “The Lordship is a patient man.” Rather, Moneybags was a conniving snake who would stop at nothing to have them in his jaws. The old crones at the Abbey were known to be orthodox and uncompromising to the point of cruelty. They were religious fanatics who took the Good Book’s word over any man, and thus reliably indifferent to the seductions of power and money. Under the protection of the Abbey, Moneybags’ venom was ineffectual. “With the healing force of God by my side, I will soon be back on the path of righteousness. I won’t disappoint you, Mother.”

The Countess sighed heavily. “As long as the Count agrees.” She waved a hand in the air, indicating she wanted to be left alone with her thoughts. 

Angela curtsied. She took long strides out of the room, and Lucy followed closely behind. As they walked in tandem down the long hallway, they looked how a master and servant should, with master leading the way and servant trailing by a deferential meter, soft susurrations of swishing fabric the only suggestion of the lesser’s presence. There was no one around to witness this understated final act, which felt odd for the pair who was used to walking side by side. 

Once they reached Angela’s suite, Lucy checked both ways to make sure the hallway was clear, and she shut the door behind her with a click. The hallway was briefly silent. Had there been an eavesdropper, they would have heard muffled shrieks of joy coming from the young lady’s room. 

The plan had been a success. They were going to the Hole. 

For most young ladies, the Hole was a punishment designed to break their spirits and turn them into proper, God-fearing women. Angela and Lucy, however, spent their time passing notes in bible class, reading profane literature, and daydreaming about freedom. Freedom was such a foreign concept for a bankrupt Countess in the making. The Hole, with its backbreaking regimens and daily schedules, was still the closest Angela had ever come to that delicious fantasy. 

Then it must have been the product of too much freedom that led them to pursue their specific extracurricular activity. They lacked moral fibre, and neither had received a proper Catholic education. What else could push two sheltered women to witchcraft? Their overactive imaginations were the sign of the Devil. The tribunal, after reviewing the indisputable evidence, would have condemned them to hanging. However, what the courts would not have understood is that the two girls would have lived happily in the Hole, unencumbered by both polite society and Satanic rituals, had the letters not flooded in.

How could they ignore the letters? Moneybags, ever predictable, sent badly written self-insert erotica like clockwork. He often went into grotesque detail about the state of Angela’s maidenhood and the scenarios in which he would break it, each scene attempting to be innovative in its sadism and ultimately proving banal – variations on a penis in a vagina. At first, Angela and Lucy would do dramatic readings of these letters. His prose was so bad that it perversely became somewhat good reading, and it would provide some much-needed comedic relief after particularly monotonous days in the Hole. However, Angela could not put off reality forever. These letters portended her fate once she left the sanctuary of the Abbey. 

Eventually, they burned the letters without opening them. 

To understand godliness, wasn’t it necessary to explore its opposite? How could one appreciate light without living in darkness? Angela’s tired brain came up with these half-baked clichés as she dragged a half-comatose Lucy back to the dormitory. By the time they’d scrubbed away the goat’s blood in the lean-to and rearranged the hay to its pre-ritual state of entropy, sunrise was upon them. 

“I hope the abbess didn’t see us sneaking in,” Lucy said, stifling a yawn. “I don’t think the abbess ever sleeps.” They stood in the communal bathroom, partaking in the one true miracle the Abbey had to offer: hot running water. Despite Lucy’s inherent sluggishness, she insisted they clean their tunics before the goat’s blood had a chance to cake in. Lucy had a high tolerance for clutter and disorder considering her mistress’s affinity with it, but Lucy was fastidious about cleanliness. Her pride as a maid wouldn’t allow for her mistress to go to bed in a filthy habit. Lucy was hunched over the sink in her undergarments, furiously attacking her habit with a crumb of soap. 

Angela stripped off her filthy habit. Thank God it was black. It would have been hard to explain the bloodstains. She’d have to give her tunic a good scrub for her own peace of mind. The nuns demanded that every girl do her own chores, even if accompanied by her maid, which gave Lucy no small amount of grief. Angela had to fight her for the right to wash her own underwear. Angela’s piano-playing hands, for the first time ever, had formed calluses. 

“You can shower first Angela. I’m almost done with this one.” Lucy was elbow-deep in a basinful of suds, happily scrubbing away.

“Fine, but I’m washing my own tunic.” Angela left her undergarments folded in a neat pile by the sink and stepped into the shower. The hot water on her face was a blessing. Lucy hummed a familiar melody that Angela couldn’t quite place, likely a variation on a work song rarefied by Lucy’s silvery voice. Angela closed her eyes. She massaged her scalp with slender fingers, doing battle with her insidious tension headache as she waded through her miasma of fatigue. The cocoon of hot water had a soporific effect. Lucy seemed to be singing to her from within a dream. 

Angela didn’t know when she had fallen asleep. She was negotiating with the abbess for another minute of sleep when she heard Lucy intone, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” Lucy’s exclamation pierced Angela’s waking dream, and she was startled back to white tiles and rushing water. Angela had never slept standing before. It wasn’t like her. 

“Macbeth, I see.” Angela’s voice had a raspy edge. She cleared her throat. 

“You weren't supposed to hear that. It’s the only line I know.” Lucy sounded sheepish.

“We have plenty of time to rectify that now, don’t we?”

“I don’t think all the time in the world could get me to understand Shakespeare. I don’t have the brain for it.” Through the white noise of running water, Lucy’s laughter sounded faraway.

“If you didn’t have the brain for it, then how could anyone possibly confront Shakespeare? You underestimate yourself.” Angela scoured herself efficiently, making up for lost time. The minute she turned off the taps, a hand brandishing a towel thrust itself past the shower curtains. Angela couldn’t help but smile. She wrapped the long towel around herself and stepped out of the shower, shivering as her bare feet touched the cold stone. 

“Ta-dah!” Lucy held out a dripping tunic, her face beaming. A second tunic hung over the sink basin, partly wrung dry. “The trick to removing blood is to soak in cold water right away, so you can’t blame me for doing yours. The clock was ticking.”

Angela looked at her with a bland, clearly unimpressed expression. “I told you I’d do it myself!”

“It wasn’t my fault you were in there for so long! Milady.” Lucy cackled. Angela hated it when she called her that. Before Angela had the opportunity to swat at her, Lucy dashed away in her undergarments, clutching both tunics to her chest. 

Angela watched Lucy streak down the hall helplessly. A trail of water followed. Angela sighed and muttered under her breath, “Lucy, you still haven’t showered yet.” 

They were going to be written up for missing morning mass. Some snitch would turn them in, and they’d be stuck with Lydia duty for a week. The weekly roster for Lydia duty was never followed, usurped by a running tally of the girls who’d been reported to the abbess for minor offences. It was a backwards system, one that bred tattletales and backstabbers. The horrors of mucking Lydia’s stall made a rat out of even the most virtuous girl. It was out of their hands now. Sleep called. 

Angela dried her hair with a damp towel and twisted it into a long plait that fell over her shoulder. She and Lucy shared a chamber, though chamber was a generous name for their cubbyhole of a bedroom. It was essentially large enough only for two twin beds and a nightstand. They had the fortune of a window, a sliver of glass that allowed in a narrow stream of light. Angela wasn’t a fan of going to sleep with wet hair, but it would have to do. The tip of her braid soaked the front of her off-white nightgown, leaving a damp patch above her breast. 

Lucy flopped onto her hard mattress. Her hair had dried into a frizzy nest, and with her face planted in her pillow, it looked as if her bed had grown a spiky sea urchin. “You know, if we had killed Lydia, there wouldn’t be a stall to muck. I think we miscalculated.” 

“And I think you’re becoming delirious. You should get some sleep.” Angela said. 

Lucy rolled around in her bed, entangling herself in the thin sheets. “Thank God it’s Sunday. Chores are for chumps.”

“You know your original calling was housework, right?” Angela smiled fondly at the lump on the opposing bed, who had petulantly pulled her sheets all the way over her face. 

“Chores are for chumps,” Lucy huffed once again, her words muffled through the fabric. 

Angela walked over to the lump and patted its obscured, round head. “Good night,” Angela said before she drew the blinds and snuffed out the sun. 

Angela couldn’t sleep. 

Every time she closed her eyes, she was brought back to that scene in the barn. The jug, falling. Blood on her hands. A glowing pentagram. 

It had felt so real. 

“Lucy, are you asleep yet?” Angela whispered. 

Lucy mumbled some gibberish Angela couldn’t make sense of. 

Angela padded out of her own bed. Lucy wasn’t a particularly pretty girl, but she had a childish charm that was accentuated in sleep. She looked so innocent. “Can I come in? I can’t sleep.” Angela laid down next to her on the remaining slice of mattress.

Noiselessly, Lucy wrapped an arm around Angela’s waist and pulled the sheets around them. They were on a precipice; they could tip over at any moment and land calamitously on the parquet floor, yet Angela felt completely at ease. Angela tucked her face against Lucy’s shoulder, and soon, she too drifted off to sleep. 

Angela dreamed of a castle. She walked down a long hall in her nightgown, trailing her finger against the wall as she went. The walls shined like polished obsidian and were fitted with impossibly tall lancet windows. The same glassy black stone felt pleasantly cool under her bare feet. Above her, the ribbed vault ceiling was fitted with dangerously sharp onyx chandeliers, their apexes crafted into spears. She wondered who would possibly order such deadly looking chandeliers. Enormous panes of stained-glass cast purple and red light into the space above Angela’s head, setting the dust motes on fire. On closer inspection, the glass seemed to depict medieval torture scenes, each motif and method unique. Demons with lolling tongues held naked, castrated men by their ankles over pots of grease. Rats were placed in charcoal-heated prisons above men’s abdomens, and the poor rodents had no reprieve from the heat but to claw their way down. Pear-shaped contraptions were shoved into orifices and gradually cranked open, splitting mouths and anuses. The shadow of a voluptuous woman presided over these scenes of misery. She was seated in the centre of a vast spider’s web, smiling beatifically at these suffering men from her perch. 

The architect clearly had a predilection for black, Angela thought mildly. 

At the end of the hallway, a figure dressed in opulent red sat on her throne. Her long legs were thrown over the arm of her chair, insouciant. Her black hair rolled in waves, past her plunging neckline down to her waist, interrupted only by two sets of gleaming black horns. Even from this distance, she looked bored. 

Angela felt chills rush down her spine. In a panic, she realized her feet were no longer under her control. They marched forwards relentlessly. Angela tried to dig her trailing finger into the wall to impede her trajectory, but the wall was too smooth to gain purchase. She was unable to look away from the woman on the throne. The woman stretched luxuriously, exposing a swathe of tanned leg through the high slit in her dress. She sat up and elegantly propped her chin against her knuckle, watching as Angela made her inevitable descent. 

Angela’s treacherous feet drove her forward until she was so close to this woman, she could almost reach out and stroke her beautiful face. Her eyes were the colour of polished amber, a molten gold that looked more animal than human. She reminded Angela of a cat watching its prey, waiting for it to exhaust itself before she eventually broke its neck.

Suddenly, Angela felt her knees buckle. A crushing pressure forced itself upon her, threatening to snap her spine in two, and she had no choice but to prostrate herself at this woman’s feet. From this position, she had an intimate view of the woman’s spiked heels. Her gaze was drawn helplessly upwards, following the leather straps that crisscrossed up the beauty’s toned legs. 

“No need to be so polite, dear,” the woman spoke, chuckling, “A curtsy would have done.” Angela felt her breath catch in her throat. It was that same saccharine voice she had heard in the barn. 

As soon as the woman waved her hand, the pressure was gone. Angela coughed and took an agonized breath, sucking oxygen back into her deflated lungs. Every fibre of her being was telling her to run, yet she stayed sprawled on the floor, paralyzed. Her instincts had taken over. A primitive part of her had assessed the options and deemed flight impossible. 

The woman’s laughter, like tinkling bells, filled the hall. “Angela, you called upon me,” she sighed. Her mellifluous voice transformed Angela’s name into prayer. 

Angela’s senses were quickly overpowered by the heady scent of roses. Angela felt her stomach churn. She had to bite her lip to fight the wave of nausea that washed over her. The woman knew her name. 

“It’s been so long since anyone has asked for my services. I’ve been dreadfully bored here,” the woman continued. She stood from her chair and glided down the steps until the vamps of her heels were mere millimetres from Angela’s fingertips. Her garnet dress clung to her curves, the red fabric hugging her hips before it fell in a pool around her feet. 

“I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. You can call me Inanna.” 

Inanna. Inanna. Her name was a mantra that resounded in Angela’s head. Angela’s heart rattled against her ribcage like the wings of a trapped moth against glass. Angela croaked, “Inanna, I’m sure this was just a misunderstanding.” 

Without warning, Inanna ground the toe of her platform heel onto Angela’s fingers, swivelling her ankle in graceful arcs as she bore down. Angela screamed in pain. With every gasping breath, she was overwhelmed by Inanna’s sweet fragrance. She felt like she was going to choke on. 

“A misunderstanding, you say?” Inanna flashed her a brilliant smile, showing spectacular white teeth and pointed fangs. “Awful lot of intent with all that goat’s blood. I do think the circle needed a little work, but you had very good pronunciation,” Inanna said. After one more twist of her ankle for good measure, she lifted her foot from Angela’s red and swollen fingers. Angela stifled a whimper and cradled her limp hand to her chest. The long vertical scar down her forearm throbbed in time with her fingers.

Inanna sat down on her haunches primly, lowering herself to Angela’s eye level. She crossed her wrists over her knees. Inanna was even more beautiful close-up. “The fact of the matter is, the price has already been paid, so you might as well go through with it. I know the gist of your wish, but I’m not a mind-reader. You would have had to summon my sister for that, hah! Now, you don’t have to worry about the logistics. We can make it as quick and merciful as putting down a lame horse if you’re into that sort of thing, or we can also make him suffer. Anything is on the table. And don’t be ashamed of your interests. I’ve seen it all, trust me. I find that women are most pleased with the results when they’re able to articulate exactly what they want. Not so different from sex.” 

Angela’s mind reeled. This woman talked to her like they were old friends, despite having crushed her fingers underfoot not ten seconds earlier. The whole situation was surreal. She might have convinced herself that this was just a horrible nightmare if not for the pain coursing through her hand. From the cold stone against her knees to the fragrance of roses, these sensations were far too visceral. Inanna herself was proof enough that this wasn’t a dream. Angela didn’t think it possible for her mind to invent a woman of such perfect beauty. Besides, Inanna’s horns looked exactly as they had been depicted in the Book. To complete the picture, all she needed to do was sprout a pair of massive, black wings. 

Inanna was a demon. 

And demons did not work for free. 

“What was the price?” Angela asked.

Inanna pouted in disappointment. “I shouldn’t have started with that. You evidently didn’t hear anything I said afterwards. We’re not a charity, darling. I consider myself generous, but I still need to eat. You know, put food on the table for the children, support my ailing mother.” She threw a hand to her forehead dramatically, à la actresses in silent films. 

Angela stared at her blankly. Although Inanna’s face was exquisitely expressive, able to leap through myriad emotions in the span of seconds, her mannerisms were hollow. It was as if Inanna had a series of magnificent masks that she donned when the occasion felt right. Every beautiful smile of hers seemed just as fake as her playful histrionics. Angela thought to herself, “She doesn’t feel a thing, does she?” But no, that wasn’t quite right. The feral look in Inanna’s eyes as she danced on Angela’s fingers had been very real. 

Inanna shook her head, smiling. “Tough crowd. And here I thought I’d try my hand at human humour. Well, you’ve got plenty of time to think about how you want to dispose of him. You don’t have to make the decision right away. It’s an important one! You only ever get to kill him once, so you have to make it count. I’ll be in my parlour if you need me.” 

Strangely, Inanna’s heels made no sound against the stone floor. 

“Wait!” Angela cried. “Lady…”

“You can call me Mistress.” Inanna winked. 

“…Mistress Inanna.” Angela needed more information. There was no telling what Inanna wanted, or what she might do to her. “You’re right, I did want to do away with my fiancé by whatever means necessary, and I appreciate your efficiency. I’d just like to clarify some details. Like the price you mentioned.” 

Inanna tsked and threw a thick coil of hair over her shoulder. “This is why I don’t do freelance work anymore. None of you girls ever read the fine print, and then you start complaining on me. If you’re worried, it’s nothing major. A bargain, if you ask me. It’s just whatever is most important to you.”

Angela struggled to hide the disbelief that flashed across her face. “Mistress, that doesn’t sound like it’s nothing major.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, human desires are all so trivial, I tend to have a hard time differentiating their weight. Least important, most important… to me, they’re all equally meaningless.”

Had a man been that callous, Angela would have wanted to throttle him. However, she was weak to beautiful women. Inanna personified the kind of glib charm Angela couldn’t resist. She should have been furious, should have demanded some kind of justice, but Angela found herself transfixed by Inanna’s lips. She wanted to know what those lips would feel like against her own. Maybe this was a dream after all. She clearly wasn’t thinking straight. 

Inanna raised a sculpted eyebrow. “I did say I couldn’t read minds, but I am an expert at reading desire. You’re bolder than I thought.” 

Angela flushed. “I’m not! I mean, I don’t want…” God, it was pointless. Moreover, she had more important things to fret over. 

What was most important to her? She was invested in literature and the pursuit of knowledge, and on occasion dabbled in social justice and class disparity. However, she was unsure how these intangible ambitions could be converted into a price. Some days, she worried she was too apathetic. She wondered if she was living a meaningless life, spending her days on vapid routines like nothing mattered. She didn’t know the answer. 

“I’ll tell you what, love. I’ll grant your wish. Your true wish. A little freebie on top of axing your fiancé.” Inanna put a finger underneath Angela’s chin, tilting Angela’s head upward so she had no escape from those amber eyes. Inanna licked her lips. “You’re quite a pretty one. As I said before, I’m considered generous amongst my kind. I’d be willing to re-negotiate.”

Angela’s mouth went dry. The end of Inanna’s long, black nail dug into her skin, and the pleasant burn of it made her mind go empty. “What kind of deal would you be offering?” Angela asked. 

“Come, let’s talk somewhere more comfortable. I can only look down upon someone for so long before my neck starts to hurt.” Inanna walked away without looking back, as if it were only natural for Angela to run after her. 

This, of course, was exactly what Angela did. Once again, her feet fell under the influence of Inanna’s compulsion, and she trotted along obediently. She was almost glad for it, the compulsion. It went against her instincts to be treated like a lesser. Though she detested the aristocracy, she couldn’t avoid her childhood indoctrination. Subservience was beneath her. She was a countess, a certified blue blood, yet she found herself craving the feeling of Inanna’s finger against her skin. Had her free will been intact, she might have chased after Inanna anyway, and her ego wouldn’t have been able to bear it. 

Inanna’s suite was decorated the same way as the rest of the castle. All black. She had a massive four-poster bed with a lofty canopy, surrounded by thick candles ensconced in ornate candelabras. The candles had been whittled down by varying degrees of use. Pools of creamy wax cascaded past the boundaries of the sconces, congealing in frozen globules midair. There was a rose window above the bed. It depicted Inanna in purple and black quartz, her smiling face suspended in the middle of an intricate web. Demons were not so different from the nobles of high society, Angela thought. The narcissism was astounding. Unlike those noblemen however, a woman as beautiful as Inanna had every right to narcissism. 

Inanna put an arm around Angela’s shoulder and led her to the enormous bed. Even though Angela was tall, Inanna, in her six-inch stiletto heels, towered over her. Inanna tapped the space next to her on the bed and bade Angela to sit. “What do you think?” 

Angela touched the sheets in awe, smoothing her hands over the creases. The sheets felt like water against her skin. Despite years of working with the land’s best seamstresses, she had never come across this fabric before. It didn’t feel like the work of human hands. After she had her fill, she said, “I think the black is a nice touch.”

Inanna laughed indulgently. “Sassy, aren’t we? I promise that you’ll have plenty of time to get intimately acquainted with the sheets.”

Angela chose to ignore that comment, but she couldn’t hide the blush that blossomed across her face. “The material is fascinating. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

“These things that you find so new and fascinating, I’ve had for millennia. I’ve gotten bored of living alone in this dreary castle. I just want some company.” Inanna bunched her long fingers in the fabric. 

“If you wanted company, I imagine you could have your pick.”

“It’s not that easy. Humans die in the blink of an eye.” Inanna sighed. “Of course, there are demons, but I can’t stand them. And honestly, most of them are terrified of me.”

Inanna’s caprice was indeed terrifying, but Angela kept her mouth shut. “I can’t see why. You’re so lovely.”

Angela didn’t expect Inanna’s face to fall. Inanna snarled, “This is why humans bore me. All they do is lie. You’re useless. Humans, demons, all useless.” Suddenly, Inanna smiled again, her voice sweet, “Maybe a half-demon would be better.”

Angela nodded, her smile frozen to her face. She smiled like her life depended on it, possibly in the literal sense. 

“A half-demon child. What do you think, Angela? You could provide that, couldn’t you?” 

Maybe Angela was a child to Inanna, but she didn’t feel like playing house with a demon. Inanna could go kidnap a real child, for all Angela cared. “Tomorrow is my twenty-third birthday, so I don’t think I meet that requirement.” 

“Don’t be silly, darling. I meant that we would make one.”

Angela choked on air. This whole situation was fucking nuts. “But, we’re both women,” she sputtered. 

“Oh please,” Inanna rolled her eyes before grinning wolfishly. “I’m a demon. Immortal, magical being? Conforming to the limitations of human anatomy is beneath me.”

Inanna drew the black drapes around them, momentarily enshrouding them in darkness. With a snap of her fingers, she lit the dozens of candles in their sconces. Hazy light penetrated the sheer curtains, and Inanna looked far too pleased with herself. “Don’t look so shell-shocked. Impregnation is a very simple concept, and I don’t think they’ve made any updates to the human process recently. Well, I suppose it won’t be exactly how the humans go about it, but you’ll see. Let’s not ruin all the surprises.” 

Angela opened and closed her mouth like a stunned fish, unable to gather her thoughts. This wasn’t what she signed up for. Pregnancy, its precursor and its unpleasant sequela were all things she had wanted to avoid. She didn’t despise children per se, but she had no interest in rearing one, especially not with a demoness. Children were miserable, screaming creatures. Furthermore, she did not have the mental energies to supply the thing with the love it demanded. There was no sense in bringing life to this world if it would not be well cared for. In other words, she didn’t want to become her mother. 

Sex was the other issue. Angela loved to read filthy smut, that was a given. She and Lucy made regular trips to bookstores for the sole purpose of expanding their repertoire of erotica. Two young ladies couldn’t be caught with that kind of literature tainting their minds, so naturally, they had an accomplice. The Count’s scruffy young page would bring their purchases to the till, and he was handsomely paid for his time and secrecy. So, Angela wasn’t naïve to the processes of sex. However, the physical act of it repulsed her. She had no interest in sex. The religious obsession with virginity was convenient for her. She had often used this excuse to repel sleazy noblemen who took God’s word in higher esteem than the refusals of their partners. Even Angela’s dreams were sexless. She had once dreamed of kissing some vapid blonde entertainer, but it had gone no farther than a dry touching of the lips. 

Inanna slid a beseeching hand around Angela’s shoulders, tracing her collarbone with a featherlight touch. “I’ll make it worth your while. Killing men is just for sport, but sex happens to be my specialty.” 

And curiosity happened to be Angela’s weakness. Inanna was offering, and she was a sight to behold. 

Angela trembled. She shied away from Inanna’s touch. She couldn’t imagine a fate worse than impregnation, other than impregnation by Lord Moneybags. But, God, she was curious. What would a half-demon spawn look like? How did demon physiology allow for the combination of female gametes? Would this mutant devour her from the inside and eventually burst out of her abdomen, covered in her blood? Instead of asking any of these practical things to further her intellectual boundaries, Angela asked, “Why me?” In absurd scenarios, one could only think to voice absurd questions.

Inanna grinned. “Feeling self-conscious? Don’t be. You’re a lovely little thing.”

Angela babbled on. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but Mistress, the human form is weak. We are fragile beings with limited lifespans and base desires. Surely, we’re beneath you.” 

“I’ve always liked the fallibility of humans. I think our progeny would be strong and beautiful, with just a touch of that charming naivety. There is nothing more potent than human greed.” 

Angela licked her lips. Greed. That was what Inanna lacked. A thousand lifetimes of boredom must have dampened the intensity of Inanna’s greed. Her ambitions, whatever they were, lacked human irrationality. Angela said, “Let’s say I were to agree to this new contract. Then our child would be infused with my endearing human qualities, yes?”

“I just said as much.” Inanna’s eyes flickered with impatience. 

Angela resisted the urge to wipe away the sweat beading on her forehead. Her voice trembled as she said, “So, you could find anybody else. I’m sure there have been suitable women over the millennia, yet you’re still here. Alone.” Angela swallowed. “I don’t think you could ever hope to emulate the power of human desire.”

For a moment, Inanna’s beautiful face warped, revealing an inhuman rage that made Angela’s breath catch in her throat. Inanna shoved the curtains aside. With her hands digging into Angela’s shoulders, Inanna directed her to a tall mirror at the foot of the bed, where they watched each other’s reflections. 

In the mirror, Angela looked younger than her twenty-three years. She still wore her billowy white nightgown. Wisps of hair escaped her girlish braid. Inanna looked ageless. Her ancient eyes contradicting her youthful features. Her black horns glinted in the candlelight, their jagged tips sharp enough to tear through soft flesh. 

Angela knew she was tempting fate. Although Inanna wore a leisurely smile, her nails clawed deeper into Angela’s flesh, threatening to draw blood. The demoness could kill her in countless unspeakable ways, but she had come too far to back down now.

Suddenly, Inanna wrapped her hand around the column of Angela’s throat, just hard enough for Angela to become conscious of her own delicately thrumming pulse. Inanna brought her lips dangerously close to the shell of Angela’s ear and whispered, “How would you feel if I told you that I impregnated every girl I made contracts with? That you’re a dime a dozen?” 

Angela tried to ignore the way Inanna’s cool fingers felt against her burning skin. It was hard enough to think already, and the last thing she needed was Inanna’s distractions. Forget her hands. Ignore her crooked smile, the hot breath fanning against her cheek. The reek of roses was overpowering. 

The succubus needed her. Her hand still throbbed from the pressure of Inanna’s heel. It was easy enough for Inanna to threaten. Inanna could simply torture her until she complied. Angela didn’t think she’d last a second if torture was on the table. Inanna was a pitcher plant waiting for the naïve fly to willingly slip into her sticky sweet waters and thank her as it drowned. Regardless of Inanna’s motivations, it was clear that she was desperate for this child. Her anger had betrayed her. Inanna wasn’t as complex a being as Angela originally thought. 

Angela now had the initiative, the power of choice. Yet, if the birth of a demon spawn was considered the lesser price, what could she possibly have bargained away?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Angela accept Inanna’s offer, and spare what is most important to her at the cost of her agency? Or will Angela call Inanna’s bluff and confront the consequences of her contract?
> 
> alternatively 
> 
> comment below if you want Angela to get railed by the demon lady

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of a cliffhanger. The filth will come, I promise. I would like to thank Angela for inspiring this horrible garbage.


End file.
